


No Blood in the Sunrise

by Thunderhel



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Demons, M/M, Supernatural AU - Freeform, Witch AU, demon hunter AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:48:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22075738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thunderhel/pseuds/Thunderhel
Summary: Jack is a Falconer, a hunter who specializes in the supernatural and demons in particular. Bittle is the head of a small witch coven dealing with a demon currently terrorizing the old frat house they call home. He is in over his head just enough to swallow his pride and risk calling in a hunter to help. It's a job just like any other for Jack, and the tightness in his chest he feels every time he looks at Bittle is nothing more than a distraction on the job. It's one night, one demon, and then he can get paid and move on with his life. Unfortunately, the best laid plans rarely mean anything when it comes to the supernatural.
Relationships: Eric "Bitty" Bittle/Jack Zimmermann
Comments: 29
Kudos: 203
Collections: OMGCP AU Bang 2019





	No Blood in the Sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> It's finally here! Weird AUs are my thing and I am so excited that I got to be a part of this Big Bang. 
> 
> **Content Warnings** : Graphic depictions of violence, demonic possession, mild body horror, guns, blood. stabbing, magic, supernatural creatures.
> 
> **ART FOR THIS FIC**  
> [-This incredible gifset](https://tangotangredi.tumblr.com/post/190023959279/no-blood-in-the-sunrise-by-dexondefense-as-part) Created by the very talented Sav.  
> [-And this very cool art](https://shadowfaerieammy.tumblr.com/post/190024372618/art-submissions-for-omgcpaubang-fic-no-blood) From the lovely Tony.  
> Thank you so much, I appreciate all the work that went into your art so much and I hope you enjoy the fic half as much as I love your contributions.

Alicia Zimmermann was talking.

There was a smile around her words as her mouth moved, her eyes bright and she moved her right hand as she spoke. The tips of her nails were a bright flash white and the bracelets on her wrist shifted back and forth with each movement. But like her mouth, the bracelets that should have been clacking together made no sound. She was talking and talking, but no words were reaching Jack’s ears. He was straining to hear, to understand what his mother was trying to tell him, but he couldn’t make out a single word. Interrupting her seemed rude. She seemed so happy, so unconcerned as she talked at him in complete silence, so he didn’t try to make her aware of the problem.

But then, every few seconds there was a sound. It was a horrible screeching noise, an electronic buzzing that kept echoing through the base of his skull and tramping over whatever words his mother was trying to say. She didn’t seem to even notice the interruption. He considered, briefly, telling her he couldn’t understand her over the buzzer, and maybe asking if she knew where it was coming from, but moving his own mouth seemed impossible. It felt like he was underwater, as if he had not only forgotten how to hear words but also how to speak them, and panic was beginning to set in just as an awareness was coming back into his limbs. There was another screech of the buzzer as the world went blurry. Finally he heard someone speaking, but it wasn’t his mother. 

“Jack, I swear to fucking God if you don’t answer that I’m going to come over there and I’m going to slit your throat and I’m gonna be so fucking pissed about it.”

Jack woke up as he usually did, all at once and with a vague sense of unease at having been incapacitated for so long.

“Fuck,” he hissed as he twisted on the cot he had been occupying. The curtains were all drawn tight, giving him no idea of what hour it was. “How long was I out?”

“I’m not your fucking keeper,” came the aggravated response from the pile of blankets on the nearest cot.

Jack ignored the rudeness of the answer, pushing the covers off of him as he set his bare feet on the floor. The chill wasn’t as bad as it had been the past few days. The cabin wasn’t well insulated, and when the wind blew he could hear it through the open rafters, but for now he couldn’t hear a sound beyond the hum of the space heater in the corner.

Until the buzzer went off again.

“Jesus Christ!” The mound of blankets hissed again, the pile shifting slightly as its occupant rolled over.

Jack scratched at the stubble on his chin before making his way to the ancient intercom on the wall.

“What?” he asked into the speaker, leaning his weight against the wall as he tried to get his bearings. It couldn’t be too serious, or someone either would have come to get him, or at the very least Snowy would be shaking him awake instead of just grumbling at him from under the mound of blankets he had accumulated. 

The box clicked alive. “ _You have appointment_ ,” came the garbled and staticky response.

Jack narrowed his eyes at the box, like he could see Tater through it somehow. “What?”

The box clicked again. “ _Someone is here to see you_.”

“Who?”

“Fucking shit, Jack, go the fuck downstairs.”

Jack glared at Snowy, or rather at the reflection of one eye peering out at him from the depths of the blankets. “The lights aren’t on, you don’t need to be under there.” The eye disappeared again with a mumbled complaint and Jack didn’t push the matter.

Instead he moved back to his bed, pulling a duffle bag out from underneath it and searching for a relatively clean shirt to throw on before grabbing the aging duvet off of the rest of his bedding. He made a detour to Snowy’s cot, tossing the duvet over top of the already established mountain of blankets before heading towards the stairs. The cabin was tiny, the entire upper floor comprised of the room that he and the other occupants of the cabin were sharing as a bedroom. The stairs were open and difficult to guard, which had put them all on edge, but as they slept in shifts it hadn’t been their gravest concern. The steps ended in a heavy wooden door, reinforced with five different locks that were all currently undone. There were at least a dozen symbols carved into the wood, or else drawn on in various types of blood. He was just thinking the lamb’s blood needed to be redone as he opened the door into the hall.

Hall might have been an exaggeration, as it was hardly more than two meters long, but it gave him a moment to listen to the voices in the kitchen as well as peer out the heavy curtains to try to determine the time. The sun was just beginning to rise over the trees. Jack had always thought sunrises were a gruesome sort of thing, always the first thing he saw after a hunt, shining a beacon on the horror that had transpired the night before. It always streaked the sky with shades of red that only ever made him think of blood running across a tiled floor. His opinion on sunrises, and on most things in general, he kept to himself. Opinions on things he couldn’t change had always felt useless to him. As he let the curtain fall closed again he could hear Tater’s low rumble, and a voice he didn’t recognize. It was light but masculine, and decidedly southern. He crossed his arms as he made his appearance, sizing up the situation in the kitchen.

Tater and their guest were seated at the tiny kitchen table on opposite ends, polar opposites to each other in almost every way. The newcomer was all nervous energy and anxiety as he sat in their dirty excuse for a kitchen, looking wildly out of place in his slacks and brightly patterned button up, like a character in a feel-good summer flick that got lost somewhere in a horror movie among the dirt and grime their profession brought with them. His hair was a startling shade of blond, and his light brown eyes kept nervously darting from Tater to Jack to the far counter laden with knives, firearms, and dirty jars of gris-gris. He swallowed hard and reached up a shaky hand to swipe a piece of his hair to the side.

“Hello,” he greeted, a fake smile in place as he obviously tried to keep his nerve. “How are you?”

Jack raised an eyebrow and Tater grinned. “This is new friend Little B. He say he come here to see you. He bring pie. Smells very good.” Tater had a way about him with people. He was a monster of a man, towering over anyone in any room he entered and his accent only made him seem naturally more threatening to people unused to it. But he gave off the energy of an excited puppy, all big smiles and soft edges to his massive strength. His words were kind and friendly, and before his eyes Jack could see ‘Little B’ begin to soften just the slightest bit. The smile he gave Tater was tiny and hesitant, but it was genuine.  
Little B glanced up at Jack. “Uh, you can call me Bittle.”

Tater was leaning back in his chair, one arm draped over the backrest and the other over his outstretched leg in the picture of ease. It was a skill Jack had never managed to grasp no matter how hard he tried. It had proved helpful over the years for both calming down potential clients and the occasional hysterical victim they rescued. More importantly it was invaluable for lulling threats into a false sense of security. Tater was amenable and friendly and -while he liked for others outside of their group to think he was- he was neither careless nor stupid. From Bittle’s perspective, Tater’s hand was resting on his own leg under the table. From Jack’s, he could see the Sig Sauer held in his grasp, the barrel titled up at the right angle to put a bullet straight through the base of Bittle’s skull and out the top of his head. Tater’s smile was warm and inviting, and betrayed nothing of the possibility of death lurking under the table.

Not that it seemed necessary. Bittle was short and slender, Jack thought if he could land one solid punch on Bittle he could knock him out. One hit from Tater might kill him. But looks could be deceiving and though he looked small and harmless Jack had learned the hard way more than once not to let his guard down. So he didn’t, he kept his attention rapt and trained on Bittle and Tater’s movements out of the corner of his eye as he turned to pour himself a mug of coffee. The blinking lights above the stove said it was 6:25 AM.

“I, uh, heard someone might be able to help me here. And Mr., uh, Tater-was it? – said that would be you.” Bittle shifted forward in his seat, the chair leg groaning along the floor as he put his hands around the pie tin in front of him. “I know I have to pay, but I did bring a pie to try to sweeten the deal.”

Tater laughed and the gun shifted beneath the table. Jack took a sip of his coffee, trying to imagine what the blood and splatter trajectory would be if Tater pulled the trigger. Usually they made Poots clean up things like that. Speaking of which-

“Where’s Poots?” Jack asked Tater, pretending to ignore Bittle and his strange pie.

Tater was still looking at Bittle, but he gestured with his head to the side. Jack leaned around the cabinets to look into the open living room. There was a desk against the far wall, covered in papers and books and a few chicken bones. On the floor, he could just see a pair of familiar brown boots sticking out from under it.

Jack looked back at Tater, continuing to pretend Bittle wasn’t there even as he listened for every movement he made. “Is he dead? Did you finally kill him?”

Tater laughed again, shaking his head. “No, he’s just drunk.”

Jack nodded, unhappy but unsurprised. Poots was younger than the rest of them, and he thought his stomach was thicker than it was. He had been drinking too much and Jack needed to talk to George about it.

Bittle was leaning forward, bottom lip between his teeth as he examined Poots unmoving feet. “Is he okay?”

“Who told you to come here?” Jack asked as he took another sip.

Bittle swallowed and steepled his fingers on the table in front of him. “A woman named Georgia told me where to find you. I met her in Boston. She said one of you would be able to help me.”

“He knew the knock,” Tater conceded, shrugging at Jack with that same easy smile in place.

“And she told me to tell you I was, um, in need of a Falconer?” He asked it like a question, the obvious uncertainty in his voice making his pitch higher.

Jack and Tater exchanged a glance and Jack shrugged. Tater laughed to hide the sound of him snapping the safety back into place and the rustle of his thigh holster as he slid the Sig back away. “Sounds like you know what you’re doing.” He looked at Jack. “He start to tell me problem, I tell him to wait for you.”  
Jack nodded. “Works out well, because I think you’re needed upstairs.”

Tater’s smile disappeared from one blink to the next, his eyes darting nervously to the door that led to the stairs. “Is Snowy okay?”

“I never know,” Jack told him honestly. “But he’s bitching a lot.”

Tater’s next smile was softer as he rose up out of the chair. “Then all is normal. But I go anyway. Was nice to meet you Little B.” 

Bittle waved at Tater and Jack didn’t miss the way his eyes darted to the holster on Tater’s thigh. Jack slid into the seat Tater had just vacated. He didn’t have a weapon on him, but he had already taken inventory in his head of which ones he could reach the quickest if he needed to.

“So,” Bittle began, tapping his fingers together as he smiled nervously. “Tater, Snowy, and Poots. And you are…”

“Jack.” He took another sip of his coffee.

Bittle nodded. “Jack. Nice to meet you.”

“What did you come here for, Bittle?” 

Bittle laced his fingers together in front of him. “I have a demon problem.” Jack raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement but didn’t say anything. There was a heavy pause, and Jack had never been the greatest at reading other people, but he felt Bittle was working himself up to saying something more so than he was waiting for Jack to speak. 

“I’m the head of a small coven out near Boston,” he finally said. His back was straight, head held high. There was only the slightest tremor in his hands but none in his voice. 

Jack’s eyebrows rose for an entirely different reason than before. 

“You’re a witch?” 

Bittle nodded.

“You’re a high priest?” 

Bittle winced. “Uh, I don’t really like that term. We have a yearly vote and I’m just kind of...the leader right now.” 

“The Leader?” Jack repeated. “That’s the best you could do? Why not just call yourself the Captain at that point?” 

“We’re not a sports team,” Bittle responded testily, the first show of any emotion that wasn’t fear flickering across his face. “We’re in Samwell-”

“The college town.” 

Bittle’s frown deepened. It was usually best to have any guests in the cabin remember that they could be killed at any moment. Fear and respect were the best emotions to instill in any newcomers, but Jack was quickly finding that he appreciated the scowl on Bittle’s face. It made him look less like he was made of sugar and cream, less likely to melt into the ground if Jack raised his voice. 

“Yes,” Bittle told him evenly if not patiently. “The college town. We’re a young skewing coven and relatively small. We’re not a part of the Boston Circle. We focus on healing and strengthening magic. Mostly through charm work, sigil work, and culinary magic.” 

Jack didn’t try to hide his bored expression, in fact he amplified it. All information was pertinent information, especially when dealing with a magic user, but Bittle didn’t need to know that. Without meaning to, his eyes glanced down at the pie in front of Bittle. Bittle’s eyes followed his. 

“Yes, including pies.” There was the beginnings of confidence in his statement, but it fell flat at the end as he seemed to remember who he was speaking to. “This one has some endurance baked into it, as well as some extra healing power. It should help rejuvenate anyone.” 

Jack nodded. “Sounds interesting.” There was no way anyone in the house was going to eat anything baked by a witch. Let alone a kitchen witch. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

Bittle took a deep breath, his shoulders squaring up. He was a bigger guy than Jack had given him credit for, certainly more muscular than most witches Jack had dealt with. “There’s another coven nearby and we don’t always, uh, see eye to eye on most things.” He tapped his lithe fingers along the table. “They work in a lot of curses and hexes, that type of thing. We had an altercation a few months back, and ever since then things have been going wrong for us.”

Jack held up a hand to cut him off. “I don’t get in the middle of witch squabbles, not unless humans are in danger.”

Bittle nodded seriously. The fear that had been holding his so rigid was gone, replaced with something else. Something that made Jack understand a little bit more how he could be the leader of a coven. “I’m not asking you to. About a month ago we realized we have a demon in the Haus. We don’t know if they summoned it directly, or if it’s the result of some faulty cursework, but it’s more than we can handle.” His eyes dropped down, but it wasn’t humility or deference to Jack’s authority. It was frustration. “We tried everything, and we have plenty of experience with ghosts, but we can’t handle this on our own.” When he met Jack’s eyes again, his gaze was steady. “There’s a wolfpack in Samwell, they said they worked with some people in your organization and that you’re not monsters. They said you might be able to help.”

Jack thought it was an ironic twist, that they were the ones being declared not monsters, but he chose not to comment. “I remember that pack. All female, right?” 

Bittle nodded, and kept talking, briefly trying to describe more of his situation and Jack listened in even as he considered the situation. He hadn’t worked with the Samwell pack, that had been Snowy. He tried to remember everything he could about what had happened. It had been over a year ago, well before Snowy had become little more than a voice under a mound of blankets. Jack remembered him bragging about working with that pack. All young female wolves that he had probably not even looked twice at during the mission but had harped on for days after just to annoy Tater. Beyond that, Jack couldn’t remember anything about what he had actually done. 

_“They were nice girls,” he had told Jack one night in a rare moment of honesty. “I’d help them again if they needed something.”_

Snowy’s memory was hazy these days, and Jack wasn’t sure how much information he could get from him but he would try later. 

“I’ll do it.” Jack interrupted the continued stream of words Bittle was throwing at him. “You said you talked to Georgia? She tell you about payment?”

Bittle’s eyes were wide, betraying his shock at the sudden acceptance. “Yes, she did. She said fifty percent up front. I can give it to you when you get to the Haus.”

Jack shook his head. “You’re going to drop it off at a law firm in Boston. Knight, Oluransi, and Birkholtz. Put it in cash in a plain envelope and mark it to Lardo.”

A small crease appeared between Bittle’s eyes, but otherwise he didn’t react. “Can you remember that?” Jack pressed. “Or do I need to write it down.” 

Bittle shook himself out of whatever daze he had been in. “No, I got it.” He repeated the information back to Jack to his satisfaction and Jack nodded again.

“Good. You give Georgia the address?” He downed the rest of his coffee and stood up when Bittle nodded. “I’ll be there on the 17th. 11 PM. The other half of payment is due within a week of completion.” 

He dropped his mug in the sink, and when he turned back Bittle was still sitting in the same position. Jack tilted his head towards the door. “So I’ll see you on the 17th then, Bittle.”

Bittle tensed, realizing he was being dismissed. “Right, okay.” He stood up, pushing the pie a little closer to the center of the table. He was taller than Jack had expected but still at least half a foot shorter than him. He didn’t flinch away from Jack when he took a step closer, though Jack could see him fighting the urge. “Thank you for your help Jack.” He held out his hand.

Jack, more entertained by the act than respecting it, shook his hand. “I haven’t done anything yet.” 

Bittle smiled, but it was all teeth and it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m trusting y’all with our lives. Letting us down would be a little bit worse than disappointing.” 

****

_X_ _X_ _X_

The 17th came with the same lack of pomp and circumstance that all jobs did, because there was nothing about the particular situation that set it apart from any other job. It wasn’t actually as rare as Jack liked to make it seem that witches and magic users showed up at their cabin door, asking for help. Bittle had been the first in a while smart enough to offer payment in the form of currency instead of vague favors or promises of love potions and elixirs of luck. There had been the pie, but Jack had made Poots burn that the minute he had been coherent enough to run errands again.

Jack had done his research on Samwell, had learned what he could about the coven Bittle was heading without letting Bittle know about any of it. Snowy had been surprisingly helpful on the subject.

_“They were nice girls, an all female pack. Pretty young. They were tight knit and a little suspicious of me I think, or maybe just of all men. Must have been pretty rough, wherever they came from to try to make their own pack like that. But werewolves were always assholes. You usually only deal with the males, guess they’re a pretty sexist bunch over all.”_

_“Do you remember anything about the coven?” Jack had kept his voice light, but was careful to not let it slip into too gentle of a tone. Any whiff of sympathy or notion of being handled with kid gloves and Snowy would bristle._

_Snowy had hummed, turning his face to the side as he thought. The room was dark when Jack had decided to ask, it was always dark when Snowy decided to talk. In the darkness though, Jack could just make out the stark white of the bandages that wrapped around Snowy’s face and pushed his hair in odd angles. There were a few patches of pale skin that stood out, and his lips and one eye were free as the rest of his face looked like a sloppy modern day mummy._

_The bandages were unnecessary. Snowy’s wounds had healed months ago, but Jack knew better than to push the issue, and Tater didn’t have the heart._

_“They worked with them,” he said finally. “The coven helped them put up protection spells and alarms. I think they were friends. Their pack leader was dating one of the witches.”_

_Jack nodded, tapping his fingers along his leg as he considered it. “Did you meet any of them?”_

_“Only her boyfriend, or are they mates, if they’re werewolves? I don’t know.” Snowy shifted in the blankets of his cot, pulling a comforter up closer to his chest as he tried to get comfortable. Snowy didn’t live exclusively under the covers of his bed, Jack knew that. He got up and ate and showered and worked out like the rest of them. But Jack didn’t think he’d been witness to any of that in over a year. Some days it was hard to picture Snowy having legs at all. “His name was Chris. He seemed nice.”_

_“They all seem nice at first.”_

_His words hadn’t necessarily been meant to be said out loud, but he didn’t mind Snowy’s scoff. “Don’t I fucking know it.”_

That had been over a week ago, and Jack still had precious little to go on as he pulled his sedan up to the end of the street. It was a silver little thing, the exact type of car that any suburban soccer mom or busy midrange accountant might drive to work or their weekly drinking night with their friends. It was the exact kind of car no one would suspect of having a fake floor in the trunk stuffed with holy water and wooden crosses and knives with razor thin blades. 

The first rule of being a Falconer, he had been taught years ago, was to always blend in. 

His car was parked unassumingly at the end of the street which despite Bittle’s protests was most definitely a frat house row. Two girls jogged past him, giving him friendly greetings as they did, and he nodded back in response. With his baseball cap drawn low over his eyes and decked out in track pants, an Under Armour shirt and his old worn sneakers, he looked just like he was a college student heading to the gym. When he heaved his backpack onto his pack, one might even think the sloshing inside was from a water bottle and nothing more. 

Jack didn’t need to look at the house numbers as he walked down the street, lit only by the streetlights overhead. He had already looked up satellite images of the street, and could recognize the faded wood of the old house as he approached. The streetlight in front of the lawn weren’t working properly, a muffled hum coming from the weak flickering light. He crossed the overgrown lawn with quick and sure footsteps, looking for all the world like he lived there. He had chosen the night of the new moon on purpose, it was the best time for hunting a demon after all, but it made the shadows that much darker as he approached the crumbling structure. 

“I haven’t seen a lot of frat houses in my day, but I’m sure this is still the shittiest.” 

Jack thought for a moment that his voice might have scared Bittle, who was facing away from him on the dark porch, the thin light of his iPhone backlighting his hair with an eerie glow. He didn’t startle though, didn’t move so much as an inch as he balanced on one leg against the wall. “It’s not so bad once you’re inside,” he said instead, his voice even and sure. 

Jack didn’t allow himself to smile, but he did feel something click into place in his understanding of Bittle. A witch that was surprised by a hunter sneaking up on them was not a witch worth knowing, in Jack’s opinion. 

“I’m sure,” was what he said in response. 

When Bittle turned around his smile was tight and small but seemed genuine. He slid his phone into his pocket and held out his hand for Jack to shake as he ascended the steps. When Jack was still on the bottom one, sagging and groaning with old age and misuse, he thought it was a strange thing to have to look up to meet Bittle’s light brown eyes. Not that Jack could tell they were brown in the almost non existent light, but he knew they were brown and the thought included their color all the same. 

“It’s good to see you, Jack.”

Jack hefted his pack higher on his shoulder, tapping the brim of his hat back slightly so he could see Bittle and the horrible house behind him better. “Did you expect me not to come?”

Bittle opened his mouth, though whether the furrow of his brow was out of annoyance or concern, Jack would never learn. 

“Yo, Bits, when is this dude coming?” 

“Yeah, he was supposed to be here-”

All voices trailed off as Jack turned, and while he hadn’t managed to sneak up on Bitty, it appeared the same could not be said for the gaggle of witches that had suddenly materialized on the lawn. 

Jack supposed they hadn’t really materialized, there were too many of them and they were too young of witches for that type of magic, but somehow Jack hadn’t recognized the sounds of footsteps leaving the sidewalk and moving behind him. It was a rookie mistake, the kind he would have berated Poots for. He swore at himself, but only in his head. Out loud he said nothing, but raised his eyebrows in acknowledgment of their presence. 

There were five of them in total, all male and all younger than him. But not necessarily smaller. The two who had spoken were both a few inches taller than him and broad enough that he found himself slightly concerned about taking them in a fight. He couldn’t remember ever seeing witches in such good shape. Were gym witches a thing he hadn’t been informed of? The three behind them didn’t seem to be any more frail and Jack didn’t appreciate his current odds. 

“Boys, this is Jack. Jack, these are some of the other members of our little coven. This is Dex, Nursey, Chowder, Whiskey, and Tango.” 

Jack nodded at them all, appreciating the way Nursey took a step back and Dex wouldn’t meet his eye. It was possible it was Dex who took a step back and Nursey who wouldn’t look at him. Jack wasn’t sure and he didn’t care enough to figure it out. 

“I wasn’t aware I was late.” 

“You weren’t,” Bittle was quick to assure before the redheaded side of the Dex-and-Nursey equation could finish opening his mouth to speak. Bittle raced down the steps to stand between Jack and the coven. He was at least half a foot shorter than the next shortest member, which Jack found endlessly amusing. “Dex was just nervous.” 

The redhead, Dex, nodded quickly. 

“You’re a Falconer right?” Another member asked, stepping around Nursey. “You work with Snowy?” The young man had dark black hair and there was a glint whenever he spoke, a flash of metal on his teeth that Jack thought might be braces. 

“Yes.” Jack’s short answer didn’t seem to deter him or his wide metal smile. 

“He helped my girlfriend Caitlin a few years ago. He was so nice.” Jack thought it was the first time anyone had ever called Snowy nice, but decided not to comment. The boy’s eyes took on a dreamy sort of quality, the kind Jack had watched many people’s do over the years of working with Snowy. “How is he?” 

Jack thought for a moment of Snowy’s bandaged but uninjured face, crowded in shadows and his one too bright eye glaring at him out of the darkness. 

He turned away from them to face the house. “We need to get started.” 

“Right.” Beside him Bittle turned to look up at the house as well. When he stood next to Jack their size difference was so much more noticable. Bittle was lean and short and couldn’t hold a candle next to Jack, but he seemed so much more certain of himself now, even as he stared down the house he had recently been chased out of. Behind him the rest of the coven was all nervous energy, bouncing on their feet and shuffling in place. The two in the back, Whiskey and Tango, he thought, were whispering quickly back in forth in hushed tones laced with nerves. Beside him though, Bittle didn’t look the least bit frightened. He looked angry. 

When Bittle noticed him staring, Jack didn’t back down.

“It took my Haus,” Bittle told him simply, as if he could read the expression on Jack’s face as easily as that. Jack might have been worried about him actually reading his mind, had he not been able to feel the prickle of the brand on the back of his neck, protecting him against just such magic. 

“You’re going to take it back.” 

Bittle’s attention turned back to the house. His jaw was soft and his hair was fluffy but for just a moment the gentle chestnut of his eyes was solid steel. “You’re damn right.” 

Jack needed to turn his attention to the job at hand and not to the way Bittle’s hair curled just so at the back of his neck, but it took him a moment longer than it should have. His face was hot when he finally looked back at the rest of the coven, though in the dark it was difficult to notice. “Is this everyone?”

Nursey shook his head, running his hands over his biceps in quick jerking motions, betraying his nerves. “This is like, a quarter of us. We’ve been taking shifts watching the Haus.”

“You don’t even go inside?”

“Only some of us can,” said Whiskey-Maybe-Tango. “Some people are more sensitive, I guess. And it hurts to be inside. The rest of us have to go in shifts and make sure Jenny and Mandy are okay. Foxtrot is the best at it though, it doesn’t seem to be able to touch her for some reason? Or maybe it’s leaving her alone for a reason, we don’t really know. What are you going to do? Are you going to kill it or exorcise it or capture it? Or is there something else you can do?”

Jack ignored the volley of questions as he shifted his bag around to reach into it. “Who are Jenny and Mandy, and who is Foxtrot?”

“Jenny and Mandy are the ghosts that live in the Haus,” Dex informed him. “They’re two sorority girls that died in the Haus years ago. They’re mostly harmless and they help us out from time to time so they get to stay. And Foxtrot is one of us.”

“I thought this was an all male coven?” Jack focused on, deciding to ignore the logistics of allowing two spirits to haunt a house. It made it easier for demons to enter, but he supposed Bittle at least already knew that. Though perhaps it was dangerous, to give that amount of credit to a witch he has only just met. 

“Mostly male,” Bittle told him. “Fox-I mean, Denise, is a werewolf by blood, but she never transformed. No bite’s ever taken, but she’s still got magic in her blood.” He shrugged but Jack understood anyway. 

“Not werewolf enough for the pack, and not enough of a witch to join the Boston circle.” 

Beside him Bittle was tense, an unhappy hum undercutting his words. “That’s a...crude simplification but I suppose. She’s the reason we can move in and out of the house and how we got it contained. She’s incredible with complex rituals like that.” 

Jack nodded. “And the ghosts-”

“Are staying.” There was no room for discussion in Bittle’s voice. “They helped us in every way they could with the demon, and they are not leaving with it.” 

Jack thought it was cruel to keep spirits around when they needed to move on, but he wasn’t getting paid to discuss the morality of keeping ghosts as pets. “Fine. You said you think a rival coven summoned it.”

“They didn’t.” That was the other Whiskey-Maybe-Tango, the first words he’d spoken to Jack since arriving. He stepped forward with his head held high, but his hands were shaking as he approached. “We don’t know how it got in but it was probably sloppy spellwork.” 

Bittle sighed, a deep and weary sound that told Jack everything he needed to know about the situation and the arguments that had come before. 

“Having ghosts in the house makes it easier for demons to get in.”

Bittle’s sharp glare his direction was cold and more menacing than it had any right to be. 

Jack broke eye contact first and told himself it was because he was on the clock. “So tell me more about it, what’s it been doing? George sent me some of the details but I want to hear it from you.” 

“I thought it was just the girls -Jenny and Mandy- acting up at first, and then we thought it was a poltergeist.” Bittle shook his head. “The girls stopped talking to us for a while, they’re not usually that quiet but they wouldn’t give us very much information. Things started moving and all spellwork started getting...strange. Like everything was slightly off.” He crossed his arms, clutching at his biceps as he obviously tried to repress a shiver. “And then the nightmares started. We would all wake up in different rooms than where we had fallen asleep.”

“Scratches and bruises and writing on the walls,” Dex added.

“I mean, sometimes the girls write stuff on the bathroom mirror, but less Redrum and more ‘your booty looks good today’,” Nursey added.

“It wrote Redrum?” Jack glanced from one uneasy face to the next. “Isn’t that a little on the nose?”

“It didn’t write Redrum.” Whiskey rolled his eyes. “It wrote...other shit. Wrote out secrets on the walls and on our closets. Destroyed things, or made us destroy them really. I never saw it but everything in there felt like it wasn’t real. Like you were always dreaming.” 

There was an uncomfortable pause, Whiskey looking deliberately anywhere except at anyone’s eyes or at the ground. The silence stretched on as Jack considered the implications of Whiskey’s statement, until Chowder took it upon himself to break it. 

“It possessed Tango.” 

Tango, the one with the infinite questions and the soft looking tawny hair, immediately shrunk back. The darkness that permeated the lawn seemed to swallow him up as he took another quick step back. Whiskey was quick to follow, both of them lost in the shadows and seeming to form themselves into one shape in the darkness. Jack could hear again, Whiskey talking in that low and quick tone. Tango didn’t seem to be answering. 

Chowder looked unhappy at Tango’s reaction, but held steady in his resolve. “You needed to know,” he said, sounding more like he was reassuring himself. 

Jack felt something, maybe a flash of sympathy, but it had been so long since he’d felt that for anyone that he wasn’t sure if it was the correct emotion. “I did,” he assured Chowder. “What happened?” 

Bittle’s back was turned to him, focusing instead of the form that had become again _WhiskeyandTango_. “We thought-” he hesitated, apparently hearing how often he had said that over the past few minutes. _We thought, we thought, we thought_. Each time he was wrong and each time it got his people into more trouble. Jack knew the feeling. Bittle swallowed. “We thought he was just having the same dreams and that hazy feeling the rest of us had. We didn’t realize until he tried to attack Whiskey.”

Jack thought Whiskey was rather brave then, to retreat into the darkness alongside his friend who tried to kill him, but that wasn’t his business. He kept his voice quiet when he spoke. “Does he remember anything from it?” 

Bittle shook his head. “All he said was it was cold. Everything was cold when he was laying in bed, and the next thing he knew he was waking up on the floor after being pinned down by a bleeding Whiskey.” Bittle huffed out a breath. “He was missing four days.” 

Jack raised an eyebrow at the word bleeding. “He got you?” He asked of the shadows. 

Whiskey didn’t move, his form still little more than a silhouette but Jack could at least tell Whiskey and Tango apart now. “Yeah. Had a knife in his sleeve I didn’t see, got me in the neck, but it wasn’t deep.”

Privately Jack thought Tango must have gotten awfully close to be able to slip a knife against Whiskey’s throat before he even noticed. Publically he said nothing. 

“Alright.” He turned his attention back to the house. They had wasted enough time. “Let’s get this over with.” 

“Love the attitude.” Jack had no idea who had spoken and he didn’t care. 

“Are you all wearing protection?” He glanced over his shoulder, and tried to pretend he didn’t see at least three of the boys obviouly holding themselves back from making a sex joke. 

“Yes,” Eric interrupted, clearing reading the expressions on his coven mates faces and obviously trying to avoid Jack’s wrath. He lifted up a thin chain hanging around his neck. There was a tiny vial at the end. Jack glanced at the rest of the group to see they were wearing them as well. “We’ve all got charms against it this time, we’re ready.” 

Jack nodded once. The charms would be strong enough or they wouldn’t. That wasn’t particularly his problem unless one of them attacked him. “Any of you attack me, I’m taking you down. That’s how it’s going to be. Tango, since it already got you once, you’re going to have to stay out here. It weakened you the first time, it won’t be hard to do it again, even with a charm.” 

Behind him there was a shuffling sound. “I know,” came Tango’s voice, a little more subdued than it had been before. “Whiskey and I are going to keep watch at the front of the Haus.” 

“I’ve got some of the younger members holding perimeter around back,” Eric informed him. “Dex, Nursey, and Chowder are going to come with us.” 

Jack shifted his pack around, and pulled out a second pack. The rest of his bag became suddenly much lighter as he kneeled down on the ground to unzip the second case. When he pulled out his prized possession, all of the witches shifted back slightly. 

“What is that?” 

“It’s a crossbow,” he answered, not caring enough to consider who had asked. The bow was black and silver, well worn over the years but maintained with a love he had never applied to anything else in his life. He pulled back the string, checking to make sure everything was working since his last check a few hours ago. “It’s got black arrows. Forged in Hell fire by a demon. This’ll exorcise anything it pierces, no matter how incorporeal.” With one hand he reached back into the pack and pulled out a walkie talkie. “Whiskey, you’re gonna take this. Channel 7, you let me know if you so much as see a shadow move in the window. Do you understand?” 

“Yes, sir,” Whiskey responded automatically, accepting the walkie and clicking it to the appropriate channel. 

“Should be good, even against whatever’s in there, but I’ll call you as soon as I get in. Don’t respond to anything I say unless I end with ‘Over.’” With Whiskey in charge of the walkie, and four witches behind him, Jack eyed the Haus again. “Let’s go.” 

The Haus, for all the dramatics surrounding their entrance, was relatively unassuming. Despite Bittle’s assurance that they were not a frat, Jack felt that its interior looked like every frat house he had seen in movies. 

“We can’t keep the power on,” Bittle explained as he stayed close to Jack’s right. “It blows itself out pretty shortly after we get it back on each time.”

“Fucking asshole,” Dex mumbled. “The whole breaker is pretty much fried at this point.”

“They do that,” Jack commented absently as he swung his flashlight from a dilapidated old couch to a scuffed up coffee table that still had dirty dishes sitting on it. 

Upstairs there was a creek in the floorboards, and Jack felt Bittle jump. 

In his hand the walkie crackled to life. “ _Jack? I think we see something moving in the kitchen window...Uh, Over._ ”

“Copy that, Over.” 

Jack nudged Bittle who understood just as quickly and pointed him down the hall. “It’s right off to the side.”

Jack had only just stepped foot on the tiled floor, eyeing the scuff marks on the floor and the scratches on the cabinet doors, before a sound behind him got his attention. Four separate flashlight beams whipped towards the darkness, revealing a door cracked open just enough that Jack could see a set of descending stairs. 

“Something’s in the basement,” Chowder said, a heaviness to his voice that gave away the fear he was trying to hide.

“I’ll go,” Dex said, already taking a hesitant step forward. 

Jack didn’t stop him as he reached for the knob, and in the silence that stretched between them all the creek of the door sounded like a scream. Dex directed his flashlight down the steps, leaning forward even as he pushed one foot back, like having one appendage farther away from the door would keep him safe. He glanced back at them all. In the light from his flashlight his face looked a sickly white, his freckles disappearing in the eerie glow. “I can’t see anything but-”

Whatever Dex had been about to say was abruptly cut off as he was knocked off his feet so quickly it seemed as if he had teleported. There one second and gone the next with a resounding thud echoing throughout the Haus as his body hit the basement stairs. The sound was amplified by the rest of his coven’s screams, Nursey and Chowder tearing off down the steps after him before Jack could stop them. 

Jack was right on Chowder’s heels, only a step behind but as soon as Chowder crossed the threshold of the basement to rescue his friend, the door slammed shut behind him. Jack slammed into it with a growl, hissing as the door stood fast against his shoulder and shook on its hinges with the force. His arm was aching and his heartbeat was in his throat as he fought with the knob that suddenly refused to turn. He could hear the other witches screaming downstairs, someone pounding on the door from the other side but the door wouldn’t budge. 

“Fuck!”

“Move!” Bitty’s hands were small but strong as they pushed at his chest, forcing him back away from the door. “I’m gonna open it,” was all the explanation Bittle gave before he was raising his hands in front of him, a look of determined concentration creasing his brow as he stared down the doorknob. 

Jack took a step back, trying to get out of the line of fire of whatever magic Bittle was attempting, when he tripped. At least, between the two seconds it took for his leg to give out and his back to collide with the ground, he thought he had tripped. Pain raced up his shoulder blades as he found himself still moving. There was a vice grip around his right ankle, hard enough that he could feel the pressure constricting muscle and bone and he heard something crack as the vice pulled, dragging his body in a wide arc across the dirty kitchen floor. His bow was lost, completely useless as it was thrown from his grip in the chaos. He had only a moment to worry about damage to it before his head connected with the wall hard enough that he saw flashes of white at the edge of his vision. 

He swore as he tried to curl in on himself to lessen the impact, rolling his shoulder to drag his pack to his chest in the same motion. His hand was in the bag, fingers curling around crinkling plastic as his leg was jerked hard again, but his grip didn’t falter. Ignoring the pain and the momentum of being dragged against his will he managed to get the cap off of the water bottle and whip at least half of its contents at his throbbing ankle. 

There was a horrible hiss, a sound like metal grating on itself and the smell of sulfur and fire as a shadow appeared where before there had been nothing. It looked like smoke, curling and twisting in the air as it withdrew from him, rising up like an angry swarm to collect itself and reading another strike. His crossbow was out of sight, somewhere on the ground behind him and now all that stood between him and the wrath of an angry demon was a half used and crumpled water bottle with a faded label. 

He had dealt with worse. 

Just as Jack was considering his options, running through the prayers and incantations he knew might work well enough to give him time to get to the bow, the demon lunged. His holy water was limited but the situation was dire and he only felt a little concerned at how much more of the water he used as he splashed it back at his attacker. 

He immediately found himself drenched as both the water and the demon hit opposites sides of an invisible force field at the same time. The smoke shifted and snarled above him, but didn’t seem to be able to reach him any more than the holy water had reached it. Jack only had a moment to ponder the strangeness of the development before Bittle was shouting at him. 

Bittle, who was currently in what looked like a lunge, one leg stuck dramatically out in front of the other, teeth ground together and hands shaking with concentration as he held them in front of himself. He was holding the demon back. How, Jack at no idea. “What the hell are we even paying you for?” He ground out, his entire body trembling with the effort to hold a demon in place. 

Jack might have laughed if he still had the breath left in his lungs. He turned away from Bittle, focusing instead on the swirling mass from Hell above him and reached inside himself, searching for the words he’d known since was a teenager, the same incantation in Latin he’d spoken more times than he would ever care to remember. His voice was strong and harsh, the pounding and screams from behind the basement door fading away as he focused everything he had on the increasingly more agitated cloud whipping itself into a tornado above him. 

From somewhere across the floor he heard the crackle of static and then Whiskey’s voice. “ _Jack, what’s going on?!_ ” 

The cabinet doors shook and the window clattered against the pane and somewhere it sounded like something made of glass shattered, but Jack didn’t stop. The tornado twisted in on itself again and again and as he finished the last word, it finally stopped. It was like a dam breaking, the contained field of energy suddenly surging outwards, dissipating with a violent and furious screech. 

Bittle hit the floor beside him at the same time the basement door flew open, a body tumbling out with a yelp and joining the two of them on the floor in a haphazard and exhausted pile. 

“Is it dead?” Chowder asked after a tense pause. The only sound in the Haus was their labored breathing, heavy and wet in the still of the kitchen. 

Jack brought himself up on his elbows as Bittle slowly dragged himself to his feet. 

“I think so,” Bittle said. 

Behind Chowder, Nursey and Dex were coming up the stairs, Dex’s arm was snug around Nursey’s shoulder and Nursey’s behind Dex’s back. Dex looked to be limping and there was blood on his face that might have been a nose bleed, but all things considered Jack didn’t think he looked too bad. 

“You okay?” Bittle asked before Jack could. 

Dex nodded. His hair was sticking up in the back and it looked like he might have torn his flannel. “I’ll fucking live. As long as it’s dead.” 

Jack grabbed the nearest countertop to pull himself to his feet. He shifted his weight onto his right foot experimentally, unhappy to find the pain of it shot straight up his calf, but grateful it obviously wasn’t broken. If he stayed off it for a day or two he would probably be fine. Bittle was suddenly at his side, one hand on his arm and eyes on Jack’s injured foot. Bittle’s fingers were soft where they brushed against his bicep, and Jack was focusing too hard on not letting the pain get to him to focus on why he shouldn’t like the feeling of Bittle’s hands on him so much. 

Behind them the other witches were talking, tones hushed and anxious and excited all at once. 

“Are _you_ okay?” Bittle asked Jack. 

Jack nodded, his jaw tense as he stared at Bittle’s hand. “I’ll fucking live,” he parroted and didn’t even pretend to not enjoy the way Bittle smiled in return. “Thanks for your help back there, that was impressive.”

It was dark, they were now down to two flashlights and the streetlights outside were still dim, but Jack thought he saw Bittle’s face flush. “Aw, it was nothing really. Learned to do those protection spells my first year in this coven. Consequences of living with this many rowdy boys.” 

Jack didn’t comment on hearing someone use the term ‘rowdy boys’ in real life, but it was a struggle. “It is when it’s against a demon,” he said instead. “Not many witches could do that. Guess that’s why you’re the High Priest.”

Bittle winced and Jack didn’t hide his grin. “Please stop calling me that.” 

“We did it!” Chowder crowed. He had his arm around Dex’s back as well, and Jack thought Dex looked mortified to need the help from two of his friends. 

“Go team!” Nursey jostled Dex, earning himself a curse and a hiss in response. 

“Go team.” Jack echoed much more quietly. He had known the three young witches in front of him for less than an hour but he was beginning to like them. “Now, we-”

Jack let his sentence trail off as he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. There was a picture hanging in the hallway. It was pure white and held in a glossy black frame. “ _You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take_ ,” was emblazoned in looping black script across the white, and in the corner there was a reflection. It wasn’t any of their reflections, but that of a girl. She was distorted and hazy in the way of reflections in a surface that was never meant to be a mirror, but she was there, just as clear as if she had been standing in front of the picture where there was nothing but empty space where she should have been standing. Her hair was blonde and messy on top of her head, and her sweatshirt was torn in places and looked to be stained with something dark. Her eyes were wide and terrified as she stared back at Jack. 

_“There’s two other ghosts, sorority girls that died years ago.”_

It was one of the ghosts they wanted to keep, Jack assumed. Ghosts unnerved him at the best of times, but something about her was making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Slowly, her arm shaking, her reflection shifted, raising one hand up beside her so he could clearly see when she held up two fingers. Jack narrowed his eyes as he watched. She shook her hand, an edge of desperation to the movement as she kept her fingers up in a peace sign. Her mouth was moving, frantically forming the same shape over and over as her hand moved. 

It hit him like a punch, all of the air rushing out of his lungs as he understood. 

Two. There’s two of them. It’s not over. 

Jack turned back to the group, and found three pairs of eyes staring at him with confusion and nervousness, and one meeting his gaze as steady as hawk. Dex’s eyes were hard and Jack only had time to register that his necklace was missing, the protection against possession lost in the confusion of his descent down the stairs. It wasn’t enough time to move or to give a warning before Dex was twisting out of Chowder’s loose grasp and thrusting his hand into Nursey’s neck. 

Nursey made a strangled sound of surprise as he stumbled back, both hands reaching for his neck as he looked at Dex with betrayal in his eyes. 

Dex’s hand came away as Nursey stumbled back, and Jack could see the glint of a blade in his hand. It was a box cutter, concealed in the palm of his hand. Nursey’s hands were turning dark and slick in the low light of the streetlights, and Jack didn’t have time to consider how badly hurt he was as he scanned the floor for his crossbow. But Nursey and Chowder were still within range of Dex’s hands and demon strength was nothing to make light of. 

Dex’s eyes were wild and manic, box cutter still tight in his hand as he followed Jack’s movements. “Can’t believe they brought in a fucking hunter. A whole fucking coven of witches so shitty they couldn’t even try to handle us themselves.” Dex’s voice was his own but it was wrong at the same time. It was too guttural, like something sticky and heavy was coating his vocal cords and distorting them. “You’re all so fucking stupid it’s so easy here. But that’s just like witches isn’t it? All that power and all they’re ever concerned with is trying to fuck each other.”  
His cruel eyes cut hard to Nursey who was still managing to stay on his feet as his hands kept their grip on his own neck, the front of his shirt slowly changing color with the blood leaking down. 

“He knows, you know? Just like the Italian kid knew about the Mexican kid.” He turned his head back to Chowder, his movements too jerky and too quick all at once, like a snake preparing to strike. Chowder shrunk back against the wall, his entire body trembling. “Italy and Mexico and Ireland and Pakistan and China, it’s just a goddamn fucking melting pot in here isn’t it?”

Jack spotted the crossbow, hidden in the shadows beneath the far leg of the kitchen table. His hands twitched at his sides. 

“And you,” Not-Dex continued his tangent, turning that horrible gaze on a petrified Bittle, “the leader of this fucked up little band. Who the fuck are you? Can’t even get rid of a demon as stupid and powerless as that other one? Couldn’t even recognize me in your little prodigy, not for fucking days. How the fuck did you become leader? You call in a demon hunter at the first sign of danger because you’re too scared to handle it yourself and I bet you’re gonna try to pay him with-”

Whatever no doubt crude comment Demon Dex had to say about Bittle’s payment plan was cut short, as Chowder’s fist connected solidly with Dex’s nose in a hit so hard and unexpected it sent the demon stumbling. Chowder didn’t back down, using the opportunity to push forward, hitting Dex with another hard punch to the face that made his head snap back to hit the wall with a crack. “Don’t talk about Bitty like that!” Chowder shouted. He hit again as Dex snarled. “And don’t.” Punch. “Hurt.” Punch. “My.” Punch. “Fucking.” Punch. “Friends.” 

Dex was on the ground, blood welling up between his teeth and trickling down his broken nose as he floundered under Chowder’s assault. Demons were strong, and Jack had never in his life attempted to just flat out hit one with nothing but his fist. Tater had done it, had fought with nothing but his fists and his anger and driven a demon out, but Tater had at least 70 pounds and half a foot on the man attempting to do it now. But there was a fury in Chowder Jack wouldn’t have originally guessed, and the demon in Dex’s bruised body was struggling to keep up. In the confusion Jack dove for his crossbow. 

“Chowder move!” He ordered, raising it with a black arrow nocked and ready. 

Instead of complying Chowder turned his head, a momentary lapse in his attention to Dex and was thrown off hard. 

“Jack no!” Bittle threw himself between Jack and his target and Jack jerked back as he almost shot straight through him. 

“Bittle fucking move!”

“It’s Dex! You’ll kill him!”

“You paid me to kill a demon, I’m going to kill the fucking demon. I told you what would happen if anyone got possessed.” 

“We can exorcise him!” 

Dex was shifting on the ground, spitting blood onto the floor and grinning a wide and ugly smile. “You can fucking try.” 

“It’s not that fucking easy once it’s in a person,” Jack continued. 

Chowder’s hand shot out from where he had crumpled on the floor, grabbing hard at Dex’s closest hand. 

“What the fuck-”

“Get his other arm!” Chowder shouted over Dex’s protests. 

Bittle moved, scrambling across the floor to grab Dex’s other arm and holding it tight as he looked at Jack with wide and pleading eyes. “Please just try!” 

Jack held the crossbow up again, shot aimed straight at Dex’s chest as Chowder and Bittle held him tight. All he could see was their hands tight on each of Dex’s wrists, but their faces were creased in concentration, hands trembling with effort and despite Dex’s attempts to twist free he seemed unable to shake them. Against his better judgement Jack kept his finger on the trigger and instead of firing began to recite. 

The thing in Dex’s body rolled its eyes, lips curled back in a snarl. Its arms were locked in place but it didn’t seem to be concerned with the proceedings. “This is all adorable, really. Is it the power of love you’re going for here?” A trickle of blood bubbled up over his tongue, a thin stream running down his chin. 

Jack wanted to tell them it wasn’t working, that they needed to let him just shoot, but the truth was he didn’t need their permission. He could take the shot and end this right here. Instead he kept reciting. 

The front door opened with a slam, and Jack kept going, eyes cutting to the side to see Whiskey barreling in from the hall, the walkie still clutched in his hand as he took in the scene before him. A moment later Tango was behind him, one hand gripping Whiskey’s shoulder like he didn’t like the idea of being in the Haus without making contact with Whiskey. 

Bittle didn’t glance away from Dex, not needing to look up to know who it was. “Tango, help us! Whiskey, call for the Waffles!” 

Jack couldn’t keep watching them, turning his attention and focus back onto Dex, still fighting against Chowder and Bittle’s iron grip and whatever magic they were using to hold him in place. Jack didn’t trip over his words though, the incantation burned onto his tongue even stronger than in his brain. He wasn’t watching them anymore but he heard Whiskey saying Tango’s name, but then Tango was pushing past him into the kitchen, racing to Chowder’s side and crouching down with him to add his hands to Dex’s arm. Whiskey was calling something over the walkie and then he was next to Bittle, adding his strength and magic to the circle holding him in place. Dex’s brow creased, looking more frustrated than a moment ago but it still wasn’t enough. Jack was circling back through the ritual, starting over again. He narrowed his eyes down the sight, he had a clear shot straight to Dex’s unprotected chest. 

“Do it,” Dex hissed, eyes bright and wild. “Shoot him.” 

“Don’t you fucking dare!” 

Jack thought Whiskey had yelled but he wasn’t sure. 

“Jack, wait!” That was definitely Bittle. 

Jack’s finger stayed on the trigger as the door opened again, but he didn’t turn his head. Dex was relaxing again, looking almost comfortable as he stared straight at Jack’s face, eyes unblinking as he waited for the inevitable. The witches were all yelling again as three more of their coven joined in. Jack heard Nursey still slumped in the corner assuring them he could handle himself and then all of them laying their hands on Dex’s shoulders. 

“What the fuck are you all doing?” Jack yelled, cutting through the confused and terrified chatter of the coven around him, finally breaking his chanting. 

“They’re trying to hold Dex down and force me out,” the demon supplied, looking absolutely delighted by the idea. He winced once but his features smoothed out just as quickly. “But it’s not enough.” His eyes never left Jack’s face. “It’s not going to be enough, _Jack_.” 

The door opened a third time, and before Jack could even consider the shot there was another witch standing beside him, beginning the incantation for the third time. When she met Jack’s eyes hers were dark and wide and the smile she gave him was anxious and hopeful all at once. 

Snowy had always had a gift for identifying even a drop of werewolf blood in a person, and while Jack had always thought he was good at it he found himself stumped by the young woman standing next to him. He couldn’t read anything off of her, not wolf or witch, but he knew she had to be Foxtrot, the girl who was part both and neither at the same time. And she knew the ritual. 

Jack joined back in, two voices instead of one as he lined up the shot again, unwilling to lower his crossbow even as he tried every possible alternative to killing a member of the coven he had been paid to protect. He could feel his arms shaking, and could see all seven witches beginning to tremble and sweat with the effort they were putting out to keep Dex in place. 

But they were losing. Seven witches were holding him down with two people attempting to exorcise but Dex was still moving. In fact he looked to be doing better than he had before, the blood around his mouth was running slower and his eyes were looking brighter. They were all losing the battle and Dex’s demon was gaining ground fast. Jack was just about to move his finger back to the trigger, about to give the warning to the others as to what was about to happen, when he saw movement from under the table. 

Nursey was still down, curled up on his side on the floor with his hands still clutched at his throat even as the blood was running slower. He looked paler than he had before, his hands shaking wildly on the tile as he half crawled his way closer to the huddle on the kitchen floor. Dex’s eyes left Jack’s face for only a moment to watch Nursey’s progress, but seemed unconcerned with the addition of an eighth set of hands. Until one hand came down on Dex’s ankle. 

The demon hissed out a curse, and Nursey’s hand came away with fresh blood coating the boxcutter clutched in his hand, the same one he had been stabbed with only minutes ago. A fresh cut was welling up through Dex’s jeans, staining his sock and boot as it began to pool under his heel. Nursey reached out with his other hand, the one that had been locked around his own neck, and slapped his hand, covered in his own blood, down on Dex’s fresh cut. 

It was blood magic, both stronger and more dangerous than anything else that had been attempted that night.

The demon’s scream was loud enough to rattle the windows, and for a moment every light in the Haus was on, blindingly bright in what had a second ago been complete darkness. Somewhere in the Haus was the sound of shattering glass. 

Dex’s eyes rolled back in his head and all eight coven members gripped tighter, fingers digging into flesh hard enough to bruise. Jack continued to recite, and beside him Foxtrot reached out, grabbing his bicep as he felt something surprisingly cold flood through his veins, something that could only be magic. The demon kicked out his leg, ignoring everyone else as it tried to dislodge Nursey’s hand, but he held tight. 

Jack’s breath was caught in his throat as he was frozen in spot, finger still on the trigger and eye straight down the sight at Dex’s heaving chest. After the longest minute the Haus had ever seen, something black began leaking out of Dex’s mouth. It overtook the blood, drowning it out and then it was coming out of his nose and his ears and eyes, a trail of black trickling down his face and pooling next to him on the floor. The hiss Dex made as the demon was forced from him was a harrowing sound, and Foxtrot’s hand on Jack’s arm was tight enough to bruise. 

Dex gave one last shuddering groan, his face so coated in black that Jack couldn’t tell if he was still conscious, and then he slumped back against his coven members, body loose and unresponsive. 

Immediately the entire feeling in the Haus shifted. Suddenly it wasn’t a dilapidated house with danger around every corner. Suddenly it was a home, a place where people lived that was just as safe and comfortable in the dark as it was the light. 

Jack didn’t sag back in relief like he wanted to, he was too well trained to show that much emotion or exertion. But he let his arms drop, the arrow now pointed at the floor and not at the coven across the floor. Foxtrot released his arm and was joining her coven all crouched on the floor. 

Someone was calling Dex’s name, and Jack turned his back as he picked up his discarded pack. “Give him room. All of you crowding around him is going to make it worse,” he said without looking up. There was a dent in the one limb of his bow, but the string didn’t seem affected. Across the room the group was shifting back, the three younger witches that Jack hadn’t been introduced to were backing up whispering among each other. Tango, Whiskey and Foxtrot were falling over one another against the cabinets, Tango in the middle trembling like he had been possessed a second time alongside Dex. 

Chowder and Bittle stayed with Dex, one arm each around his shoulders as he began to shift again. Nursey’s hand was still clutching his ankle. When Dex blinked the black goo on his face stuck to his eyelashes. With one trembling hand he reached up to try to wipe some of it away, but it seemed to only make it worse. 

“Nursey,” Dex croaked out. It was his voice again, not distorted but thick, like that black liquid might still have been coating his throat. 

On the floor Nursey shifted, finally letting go of Dex at the sound of his voice and flopping over onto his back. Jack kept his head down but allowed himself to watch the scene from under his eyelashes. The cut on Nursey’s neck was smaller than Jack remembered, the blood around it already drying up. The amount of blood was disproportionate to the size of the cut. “Dexy,” Nursey answered, sounding exhausted but very much alive. 

Dex extracted himself from Bittle and Chowder’s grip, looking like he hadn’t even realized they were there. When he wiped at his face again he used the sleeve of his flannel, and the result looked more like charcoal on his face than tar. “Fucking shit,” he ground out, leaning over Nursey. “Are you okay?”

Nursey sighed, a deep sound that Jack thought conveyed the tone of the night better than any words could. “I always knew you’d fucking try to kill me. Bully owes me $10 bucks. Good thing you suck at murder just like everything else.” 

Dex’s laugh was thick sounding, followed quickly by him ducking his head to cough something wet up into his sleeve. “You’re an asshole,” he said, sounding fond enough that Jack averted his eyes entirely, focusing instead on the barrel of his crossbow. He couldn’t remember if the scratch had been there before. “I can’t believe you fucking stabbed me in the leg.” 

“Stabbed you _back_ ,” Nursey corrected. There was a hard slap than might have been him raising his hand and dropping it back down again. “And I would have gone for your dick if it wasn’t such a small target.” 

Dex’s laugh sounded closer to a sob. Jack turned his attention to Bittle, pointedly ignoring Dex’s shaking shoulders where his forehead was pressed to Nursey’s chest, Nursey’s hands were in his hair. Chowder was crowded against Dex’s side, Bittle’s attention on the scene playing out before him. Jack cleared his throat once, and it was enough to drag Bittle away from his coven and over to him. 

Bittle opened his mouth, but Jack beat him to it. “The other half of the payment is due before the end of the week.” Jack hiked his pack up over his shoulder. “The Haus should be clear, but if there’s any more problems you know how to contact me.” 

Bittle’s eyes were wide, his face still pale and the circles under his eyes darker than they had been at the start of the night. Jack debated turning on his heel and walking out right then. He told himself that was the smartest thing to do. It was the professional thing to do. 

“Thanks for your help. All of it,” he said instead. “You’re a lot tougher than you look.” 

Bittle’s returning smile was bright and wide and just a touch shy. Jack felt his heart beat hard against his ribcage, and was powerless to stop his own returning smile. 

“Thanks. And thanks for trusting me back there.” Bittle jerked his head back in Dex’s direction but didn’t move his head. 

Jack shrugged and let his bow rest on his shoulder. “It’s your Haus,” he said as if it was as simple as that. Like he hadn’t killed for smaller threats than being possessed by a demon. Three groups of three were huddled in various states of frenzy and receding panic on the floor of the kitchen, and Jack could only ignore it for so long. The coven needed him out, they needed to handle the aftermath of this disaster in their own way. “I think your coven needs you,” he said as gently as he could manage, taking a half step away from Bittle. 

Bittle turned his head, looking over the nine people in his kitchen. Over his people. His eyes lingered on Dex longer than the rest and when he smiled again, it was a little sad. “They do,” he whispered, more to himself than Jack. “But right now they need a moment. They need each other.” His smile was still small but hopeful when he met Jack’s eye again. “I can walk you back to your car.” 

Without another look at the witches Jack nodded his head and led the way out of the kitchen. The air was lighter now, and the tension that had kept his muscles rigid the entire night was gone, letting his breath come easier and the exhaustion that came with an exorcism flow into his bones. He still had over an hour drive home before he could officially pass out. Maybe he could stop at a gas station and buy something to keep him awake. 

Bittle’s was a silent but warm presence at his side as they headed down the sidewalk. The sky was still dark, but it was a softer sort of darkness, the kind that comes right before dawn. 

Bittle was the one to break the silence first. “Thank you, for all of your help. We couldn’t have done it without you. Dex would probably thank you more if he had been able to focus on anything other than Nursey.” 

“You paid me,” Jack reminded him. “I was just doing my job.” 

Bittle hummed. “Handsome, violent and humble, you’re just a triple threat aren’t you?” 

Clients had flirted with Jack before. It happened from time to time and he always regarded it with little more than annoyance. This time however, he could feel his face heating up. He couldn’t remember the last time he had entertained the idea. 

His car was as plain as he had left it, and in the fading darkness he knew it was crucial he got the crossbow hidden as quickly as possible. Once it and his pack where hidden strategically under a few thrift store coats in the back that no one had worn in years, he turned back to Bittle. He leaned against the car as he crossed his arms. “You have strange taste in men,” Jack countered instead of addressing Bittle’s flirting directly. In the dim light from the street lamps he could see a light flush on Bittle’s cheeks. 

Bittle shrugged, his arms crossed just as tightly as Jack’s. “It’s been a long night,” he defended with another half smile. “I’m too tired to feel things like shame.” 

Jack laughed, the sound quick and harsh and surprising even to his own ears. The joke hadn’t even really been that funny. Bittle looked hesitantly hopeful at the sound. A silence descended on them then, not quite comfortable but not painful enough to be awkward.

“You know, I never did get to try your pie.”

Bittle looked up, his bottom lip between his teeth as his brow furrowed. Jack swallowed around a lump in his throat at the sight. 

“You didn’t?”

“No.” Jack shifted against the car, looking over Bittle’s shoulder. “We don’t accept gifts from strange witches. Had to destroy it. All kind of goes with the territory. Don’t accept gifts, don’t tell them your name, don’t turn your back.” 

The tiny frown on Bittle’s face was nearly enough to break his tired heart. “Oh. I mean, that makes sense. Sorry, I didn’t even think-”

“I would like to try it.” 

Bittle’s eyebrows shifted up into his hairline. “You would?”

“Yeah. It smelled good.”

“Thought you didn’t accept gifts from strange witches,” Bittle challenged, doing a horrible job at fighting his smile. 

“You’re not a strange witch anymore,” Jack told him simply. He turned then, throwing open the car door and sliding himself behind the wheel. 

“Accepting gifts, telling me your name and turning your back. Breaking all the rules Mr. Hunter,” Bittle joked. When Jack looked back up from turning the keys he found Bittle a few steps closer than before. 

Jack closed the door with a snap, but rolled down the window to smirk at Bittle. “I didn’t tell you my name.”

“Uh, yes you did. You’re Jack. All of your hunter friends had fake names but-”

Had Jack been the kind of person who laughed out loud more than twice a year, he might have laughed at Bittle’s sudden and jolting stop in speech. His mouth was still open, eyes wide as he connected the dots. 

“Jack is a nickname too.” It was a statement, not a question, and Jack thought Bittle sounded a little betrayed at the realization. 

“Don’t forget that pie, Bittle,” he said instead of responding. 

“You threw out the first pie,” Bittle said, shaking himself out of the shock of his latest realization about Jack. “You’re going to have to earn the next one.” 

“Literally saving your friend’s life isn’t earning it enough?” 

Bittle made a noncommittal noise. “You wanted to kill him, and you’re already getting paid for that.” 

Jack drummed his fingers along the gearshift, but despite the heaviness in his limbs he was in no hurry to leave. “And how would I go about that?” He knew the answer, or at least he thought he did. _Tell me your name_. People always thought there was something romantic about it. 

“Buy me dinner.” 

Jack’s hand stopped drumming. “What?”

Bittle shrugged, the red in his face bright in the darkness. “Buy me dinner and I’ll make you a pie.” 

For a moment, Jack considered the proposition. Dating was difficult as a hunter. Relationships of any kind were always fraught with danger and turbulent with emotion. He knew multiple hunters that claimed it was best to remain unattached entirely. 

Bittle’s smile was all faux bravado, a haughty air that was pasted paper thin over obvious nerves as he fluttered his eyelashes at Jack. His smile was pretty and his eyes were bright and he was stronger than Jack would probably ever be able to give him credit for. 

Jack was reminded suddenly and unbiddenly of Snowy. Of Snowy, on the last night Jack had seen him without bandages on his face, gripping Tater’s shoulder with one hand and flashing him a brilliant and private smile as he assured him it was going to be fine. That he could handle the den on his own. He thought of Snowy’s face after, covered in blood, twisted in pain, and shredded with claw marks that would never heal. He thought of Tater’s face after, haunted and withdrawn. 

He thought of his mother in his dream, sitting tall and bright and alive in her favorite arm chair as she talked to Jack. 

Jack threw open the car door, surprising Bittle enough to take a quick step back as Jack stood up. Part of him wanted to ask permission, too aware that this was the head of a witch coven he was approaching. The words got caught in his throat and instead he just approached slowly, hands up and movements gentle, giving Bittle enough time to understand what was happening and give him the opportunity to pull away. 

Bittle didn’t pull away. 

It wasn’t a deep or long kiss. It was more of a slide of lips against one another, a warm brush of soft skin for only a few seconds and then Jack was leaning back. He admired Bittle’s face, eyes still closed and lips parted in the harsh glow of the street lamps. Bittle’s eyes opened slowly, blinking heavily and breath stuttering as he stared up at Jack. 

“Tomorrow’s not a guarantee,” he whispered, mouth just barely brushing Bittle’s as he leaned back in. Bittle met him halfway, sliding their mouths against each other once again before they parted. “But if we’re both still here, I’d love to take you to dinner.”

Bittle’s smile was even more blinding up close, and it felt warm against his mouth. “It’s a date then, Mr. Not-Jack.” 

Jack grinned once more, allowing the feeling of their noses bumping gently before he pulled back. “Don’t forget about the money.”

“Darn, and that was my whole plan.” 

Jack didn’t laugh but offered a grin over his shoulder. “See you around High Priest of the Frat House.” 

“Eric.”

Jack paused, one hand on the car door. “What?”

Bittle smiled at him. “My name is Eric. Bittle is my last name.”

Jack smiled back just as the first rays of sunlight made their appearance over the treeline. “See you around, Eric.” 

Bittle waved at him as Jack closed the car door again, and he remained on the sidewalk in the rearview mirror until Jack turned the corner and both Bittle and his coven’s Haus were gone. He had just made it onto the highway as his phone began to ring, _SHITTY_ flashing across the caller ID. 

Shitty always called at sunrise the night after a job for a debriefing. He was always good at keeping Jack awake on the way home. For once though, even as Jack answered, he thought he didn’t need the help. The sun was just coming up over the horizon and for the first time in a very long time he thought that maybe the sky didn’t look like blood, maybe it just looked pretty.

**Author's Note:**

> This was so much fun and maybe I'll write more in this universe. One day. Maybe. 
> 
> A very special thanks to everyone who helped edit this fic including [theantichristsbike](https://theantichristsbike.tumblr.com/), [mrsgenderfluidwpoindexterirl/](https://mrsgenderfluidwpoindexterirl.tumblr.com/), [soundedlikeadream](https://soundedlikeadream.tumblr.com/), and [iwannabearobin](https://iwannabearobin.tumblr.com/). Thank you for translating this story from my English into actual English.
> 
> ****


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